The subject invention is applicable to all pneumatic conveying systems as for example Boon U.S. Pat. No. 3,388,260, issued June 11, 1968, entitled "Photo Sensitive Device for Conveying and Counting Fabrics"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,469,931, issued Sept. 30, 1969 entitled "Method for Treating Materials"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,681, issued Aug. 18, 1970 entitled "Laundry and Fabric Collector and Method Having a Constant Vacuum"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,606,478, issued Sept. 20, 1971 entitled "Trash and Refuse Depository System" U.S. Pat. No. 3,747,986, issued July 24, 1973 entitled "Pneumatic Bulky Material Collector System"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,807, issued Apr. 30, 1974 entitled "Feeding Device for Bulk Material to a Pneumatic Conveying System"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,829,165, issued Aug. 13, 1974 entitled "Anti-Stoppage Apparatus And Method for Air Conveying Systems"; and Haight et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,321, issued Feb. 28, 1978 entitled "Electronic Control System For Operating A Pneumatic Trash & Liner Conveying Network" all assigned to the assignee herein.
The present invention is concerned with an apparatus and method relating to a pneumatic conveying system wherein the efficiency of the system is greatly increased; particularly with respect to the separation of the materials being conveyed from the pneumatic conveying stream, such as an air stream. The material being conveyed may be of any type, including very small particles, but this system is particularly useful with the larger or bulkier light weight items, such as laundry, bed linens, fabrics, papers and generally trash or refuse.
In pneumatic conveying systems certain problems are encountered at stations for the removal of conveyed material from the system. At these stations the conveyed material is usually separated from the pneumatic stream by perforated elements such as screens or perforated plates which permits the air to flow therethrough and causes the material to fall into receiving hoppers having various arrangements of doors through which the material is removed from the system. However, these perforated elements tend to become clogged generally with lint and light weight materials. In addition, the trash and soiled laundry being conveyed often contain oils and other liquids which coagulate the lint and fine particles onto the perforated screens such that they harden thereon after a period of time. As certain holes or perforations become clogged, the velocity and strength of the air streams through the remaining still open or unclogged holes increases proportionally thereby greatly aggravating the problem and necessitating the shutting down of the entire system at periodic intervals for cleaning the material from blocking the holes, by steam cleaning and/or brisk brushing. It will be appreciated that such occasional shut down periods as well as the cost of labor for cleaning the pertinent screen members are undesirable.
Accordingly, it is an object of the subject invention to provide means for automatically and simply cleaning the material collectors so as to reduce the amount of down time and provide a more efficient and economical pneumatic conveying system.